The Hindu : Kerala / Thiruvananthapuram News : Nine-year-old murder case cracked: police

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Aug 10, 2005

Kerala

Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram

Nine-year-old murder case cracked: police

Staff Reporter

The accused has been classified a `serial offender'

Crimes under investigation Karthika rape and murder case- Valiasala, 1996 Shalini rape and murder case- Poonthura, 2001 Jincy murder case- Puthukurichi, 2003 Sexual assault case- Haripadu, 2003 Sharanya rape and murder case- Pozhiyoor, 2005

ON THE CRIME TRAIL: The accused Sebastian pointing out the spot where one-year-old Karthika, who was raped and murdered under Jyothipuram bridge in 1996, was sleeping with her migrant family. Photo: S. Gopakumar

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The police on Tuesday said that the unsolved rape and murder of a one-year-old child, Karthika, in Valiasala in 1996 has been traced back to Sebastian alias `Cheviathan.'

The 24-year-old youth had been arrested last week on charges of raping and killing a two-year-old girl, Sharanya, in Pozhiyoor.

Arun Kumar Sinha, DIG, said after his arrest in the Pozhiyoor case, Sebastian had confessed to the murder of a six-year-old girl, Jincy, whose body was fished out of the sea three days after she was reported missing from her house at Puthukurichi beach in the early hours of June 23, 2003.

Officials said the "breakthrough" in the Valiasala murder case came on Tuesday evening when the police questioned Sebastian again.

The victim belonged to a five-member group of migrant workers hailing from Shravadi Harijan colony, Usilampatti, in Tamil Nadu.

Karthika, who was sleeping in front of a ration shop, huddled between her mother, Panchavarnam, and grandmother, Thankamma, was spirited away by an un-identified person around 1 a.m. on January 19, 1996.

The panicked parents found Karthika lying unconscious near the railway track below the Jyothipuram bridge in Valiasala around 6 a.m. The seriously injured girl was rushed to Hospital for Women and Children at Thycaud. Karthika was later referred to SAT Hospital where she succumbed to her injuries on January 20.

The post-mortem examination report said the girl was raped and that the injuries sustained during the sexual assault had caused her death. The Thampanoor police came to know of the crime only on January 21 when they were intimated of the girl's death by the SAT Hospital authorities.

On Tuesday night, the police made an attempt to reconstruct the crime. Sebastian walked along with officers from the New Theatre to the spot where Karthika was found by her parents. He showed the police the spot where the migrant group was sleeping on that night.

The members of the DIG's special investigation team, P. Reghu, D. Gopakumar and R. Mahesh, all Circle Inspectors, accompanied Sebastian. Mr. Reghu said that Sebastian had huddled along with the sleeping migrant group for sometime before he "kidnapped" Karthika.

Superintendent of Police, Rural, P. Vijayan, who is supervising the investigation, said that Sebastian had taken to pick pocketing, voyeurism and abuse of ganja at a young age. The accused was hooked to watching late night films in theatres.

Sebastian's family had disowned him after he was arrested by the police in connection with the rape and murder of Shalini near a church in Poonthura in 2001.

"The police have classified Sebastian as a serial offender," Mr. Sinha said. He said the accused, though illiterate, possessed a high level of intelligence and common sense.

Most of the crimes in which Sebastian is accused had been committed within few days of his release from prison.

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